Currently most of Alberta’s electricity is produced by 18 coal-fired generating plants. With the NDP government focused on retiring 12 of those plants by 2018, Hinton is going to have to find new ways to power its homes. Wasting no time, council has already started focusing on a new alternative: geothermic reserves.
Jonathan Banks, Research Associate from the University of Alberta, brought back findings from a deep-dive analysis, examining areas within a 50km radius of Hinton for potential geothermic reserves. The results were promising.
“Within that 50 km radius, there’s about 2.5 gigawatts of thermal energy … and approaching 200 megawatts of electrical capacity … just within 50km from here.”
Using data from wells that reach up to 4,000 meters deep, he says they’ve found three reserves from Obed, Swan Hills and Leduc strong enough to provide geothermic energy. Of the three. Swan Hills reserve is the greatest and Obed is the least.
